Chapter 38 : The Road Beyond the Settlement

Chapter 38: Chapter 38 : The Road Beyond the Settlement

The road stretched ahead beneath the afternoon sun. Ethan kept one hand loosely on the reins as the horse carried him farther from the settlement he had left behind. The sounds of people, carts, and merchants had long since disappeared. Even the familiar sight of cultivated fields was becoming less frequent. For a while, there was nothing but the steady rhythm of hooves against packed earth. Dust rose beneath the horse’s feet and drifted briefly behind them before settling back onto the road.

Ethan remained quiet. His body still reminded him of the fight. Not constantly. That would have been easier to understand. Instead, the injuries announced themselves in small ways a dull pull beneath a bandage when he shifted his weight, a stiffness in his side when he breathed too deeply, an occasional ache running through his muscles. He had already dealt with the worst of it. The rest would take time.

His eyes remained on the road. Yet his thoughts briefly returned to the settlement. Not to the fight itself. To everything he had done afterward. He had not simply ridden away with whatever remained. After washing the worst of the blood from himself, he had returned carefully to the area where he had hidden the belongings taken from the men. He had done it only after making certain he was not being watched.

The weapons had been the most troublesome. Carrying them openly would have been foolish. They were unfamiliar, and he had no idea who had owned them, where they had come from, or whether someone might recognize them. So he had separated what was useful from what was merely suspicious. Coins were different. Coins were difficult to trace. The rest had been sold through channels where questions were less welcome than payment. He had kept his face covered while doing so, changed his appearance as much as circumstances allowed, and left nothing behind that connected the goods to him.

Only after that had he returned to ordinary clothing, dealt with the employer, collected the mission reward, purchased what he needed, and finally left. It had cost time. It had also been necessary. Ethan did not regret it. If anything, the experience had reinforced something he was beginning to understand about survival. Being cautious did not mean merely avoiding danger. It meant considering what happened after the danger had passed.

He looked ahead. The road continued between patches of reddish-brown earth and dry grass. Small stones had gathered along the edges where carts had worn shallow tracks into the soil. Farther ahead, the ground became darker, the vegetation thicker. The country was changing. So was he.

Ethan reached beneath his clothes and touched the travel journal. He had begun keeping it as a practical record. It was becoming something more. He had started recording distances, expenses, cultivation sessions, physical changes, useful observations, and things he did not yet understand. Especially the things he did not understand.

Blood Tempering belonged firmly in that category.

His expression hardened slightly. The memory of the battle surfaced again. His blood had responded. His strength had surged. And afterward, his body had been nearly emptied of everything it possessed. That was not control. That was an emergency. Relying on something he could not predict was no different from gambling with his life. Ethan had no intention of making a habit of it.

If something could affect his survival, he needed to understand it. That became the rule. He would observe the Blood Tempering. Test it. Record the circumstances. Determine what triggered it. Determine what it consumed. Determine how long its effects lasted. And, most importantly, determine whether there was a way to control the degree of its activation. He did not need answers immediately. He needed reliable information.

The horse continued down the road.

Several hours later, Ethan finally found a suitable place to stop. A cluster of trees stood beside a shallow stream, providing enough cover from the road without making the location difficult to leave. He dismounted. The horse drank first. Ethan crouched beside the water and washed his face. The water was cold enough to wake him fully. He checked his wounds afterward. Nothing had reopened. Good.

He ate a small portion of his provisions, then settled beneath the shade. This was as good a place as any. Ethan removed the cultivation resources he had purchased earlier. He studied them briefly. They were not treasures. They were ordinary resources intended to support the earliest stages of cultivation. That was enough.

He followed the instructions from the manual. Slowly. Carefully. He regulated his breathing and allowed his mind to settle. The process was nothing like the dramatic image of cultivation he had once imagined. There was no overwhelming flood. No sudden transformation. The Qi remained faint. Sometimes so faint that he questioned whether he was imagining it. But it was there.

He continued. Minutes passed. Then more. Eventually, warmth began spreading through his body. Ethan did not chase it. He simply followed the method. When the sensation became unstable, he corrected his breathing. When his concentration slipped, he started again. The process was slow. Painfully slow. But it was real. That mattered more.

When he finally stopped, sweat had gathered along his forehead. His body felt tired. Yet beneath the exhaustion was something different. A subtle sense of density. Not strength. Not yet. Something closer to his body becoming accustomed to what it was being asked to endure.

Ethan opened his journal. He wrote down the duration of the session. Then the resources consumed. Then the physical sensations. He stared at the page for a moment before adding another line.

Progress remains measurable, though slow.

He closed the journal.

Then he considered the Blood Tempering. He did not activate it. Not today. There was no reason to trigger an unstable phenomenon simply because he was curious. He needed controlled conditions. One variable at a time. That was how he would approach it.

Ethan rested for another hour before returning to the road.

By evening, he saw smoke rising beyond a low ridge. A settlement. Not large. Several buildings clustered around a road that continued eastward. Ethan slowed the horse before entering. The place was different from the settlement he had left. The road was narrower. The buildings older. The earth around the entrance was darker and more heavily trampled, turning almost black in places where countless feet and wheels had compressed it.

People moved through the streets carrying baskets, sacks, tools, and bundles of goods. Nobody paid much attention to him. Ethan preferred it that way.

He entered quietly. Only after finding a place to stable the horse did another problem become obvious. Money.

He checked his remaining coins. Then looked at the settlement around him. Food. Lodging. Cultivation resources. Horse feed. Travel supplies. Everything had a cost. He had enough for the immediate future. But wandering without a source of income would eventually turn his savings into nothing.

That was not acceptable.

Ethan walked farther into the settlement. A few streets later, he found a public notice board. Several sheets had been pinned across its wooden surface. Most were ordinary. A missing animal. A delivery request. Someone looking for laborers. A merchant seeking assistance. Ethan read them without interest.

Then his eyes stopped.

One notice was newer than the others. The ink had barely faded. He read it once. Then again. The reward was considerably better than the ordinary jobs surrounding it. Enough to make the journey worthwhile. Enough to cover food and lodging. Enough to replenish some of his cultivation resources.

Ethan reached toward the notice. His fingers stopped just short of the paper.

He read the final line.

His expression changed.

This was not ordinary labor. And whoever had posted it had deliberately left something out.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed. He looked around the street. Then back at the notice. For the first time since entering the settlement, he felt that his wandering life might not remain as quiet as he had expected.

He pulled the notice free.

And began reading it again from the beginning.